#because this blog was the first time i ever had an internet presence at all—where ppl were

[jjkyaoi]

tghinking about how much of a different person i used to be is so weird .. like at the same time, thinking about all the things i used to do and be into that i wldnt ever support/do NOW is incredibly embarrassing g. but i’m kind of like :. fond Definitely isn’t the right word, but ??i don’t know i feel very weird in a way that isn’t necessarily negative towards my old self, cause i grew up on the internet and i didn’t know what i was saying, and most of the things i learned i learned on my own and Not through my parents—yes that means i said a lot of embarassibg shit but then again the growth part of it is almost . nice for me to think about. like I did that. i got where i am now without anyone’s help . and maybe that meant i was into mcyt for a couple years and absolutely embarrassingly ignorant but we don’t talk abt that part.

[princelance]

a movie........

time for a rant that has been a looong time coming because

the FUCK??? NOOOOOOOOOOOO PLEASE NO NO NO PLEASE GOD IF YOU'RE OUT THERE NEVER LET THIS MOVIE SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY NEVER EVEN MENTION THAT SHOW EVER AGAIN IN MY PRESENCE it should fucking DIE and stay DEAD

the WORST fandom i've ever come across/been part of. everyone was so fucking braindead. god the bullying here was So Bad. vld fandom was the epitome of 'you can't enjoy what you like'. and the bullies were like, some of the most popular blogs here. the content creators (among others ofc) here were NASTY. the people making decent art were so fucking rude to almost anyone that didn't bow down to them and agree with their views on the show, sitting on their high horse like they were fucking gods or something when they were like, 17 or something. mind u voltron was a show about ugly transformers lions and a bunch of kids in space meant for 7 YEAR OLDS. like stfu it's not deep, it's not important. i get that this is the internet i really do but apparently everyone was a pedo and homophobic and racist and needed to be cancelled because they weren't pure angels. i hope the people who liked the show, both teens and adults alike, have grown up and learnt what those words actually mean and why you shouldn't just casually throw them around. i hated you all. u had to be so careful about what you said on here, it was like north korea or something. i remember how kids got bullied into deleting their harmless fanfics, the fucking voice actors got bullied on a daily basis, it was BAD. i remember i got hate for having shiro as my icon and the background was the bi flag colours. I AM BI. also, so what if i had headcanoned shiro as bi, you couldn't have stopped me or anyone else from thinking that, and also IT WOULD NOT HAVE MATTERED, HE'S FICTIONAL, HE'S JUST LINES AND PIXELS. i know this is going to shatter some of your worlds (or at least would have back then), but a random ass nobody on tumblr headcanoning a character as bi when said character is "actually" straight/gay/whatever is NOT going to affect irl queer people in any way, it does NOT have real life consequences. who gives a fuck. since when has the fandom given a shit about canon anyway? fuck you.

okay, i've been bitching about the fandom enough (no i haven't, there's no way you can ever bitch about the vld fandom enough). what about the actual show? well. once again it's meant for 7 year olds. who cares if it was good or not. i've seen seasons 1–6. i liked season 1, didn't really like anything after that since the show seemed to change so much. the first season kind of has a different vibe completely? idk how to explain it, it just kind of feels like the actual show and then the rest was just a long fanfic by someone who was in love with keith's character. but since i was watching the show with my sister who was 10 at the time, it was fine, otherwise i wouldn't have kept watching after seeing season 2 i don't think.

here are a few negative things about the show imo:

making keith the main character out of nowhere after s1 (where he definitely wasn't the main focus) was so dumb. god the showrunners loved keith sooo much, it was so stupid. keith was nooot a leader. whatever.

making keith the black paladin was also so fucking stupid my god. and yes, everyone here wanting LANCE to become the black paladin just because he was the fandom favourite (don't get me wrong, he was my fave too) was so fucking braindead too honestly. shiro or allura. no one else made any sense.

canon allurance SUUUCKED. like holy shit that was so bad and horribly written, even lotor and allura had a better love story and had waaay more chemistry (and their relationship ended badly, rightfully so). and NO klance was never ever ever going to be canon, you were so delusional. like lmaooo did we even watch the same show? i just really enjoyed their dynamic and that's why i shipped them together, whatever. but yeah, like i said the bullying here was disgusting and everyone was cancelled, great, klance seemed to be the only thing you were allowed to like so in that sense i was lucky.

everything they did with allura in the later seasons............ you know what? i'm not even going to start. because wtfffffffff, as a storyteller myself i ?????? what in the world were they thinking. but yeah whatever it does not matter.

the point of this post is that EW EW EWWWW FUCK THAT SHOW AND FUCK YOU, if you were in the voltron fandom in 2017/2018 i personally hate you

[lpsotd]

important announcement part 2: electric boogaloo

greetings tumblr! i haven't made an original post in (i believe) over a month, and i actually didn't plan on making an announcement about my absence at all, for no real reason honestly, i just didn't want to. however, i think i'm correct to assume there's at least a handful of people who have been my curious about my absence, or perhaps wondering why they've noticed a lack of daily littlest pet shops on their dashboard.

this post is going to be long, personal, and serious. i'm going to be talking about myself, my life at the moment, and what i'm going to be doing moving forward.

you can read everything under the cut. i'm providing trigger warnings for suicide and familial death. the first half of this post is where the warnings apply, the other half is about what i'll be doing with this blog and also relates to my internet presence in general.

the latter half of the month of september was extremely taxing on my mental health, the main reason for my mental decline is not something i'm going to touch on here, as it's too personal and there's no reason for me to air out my private business on tumblr.com of all places. all you need to know is that during late september, i was at my worst. i had been trying to push through and continue my life as normal despite the constant turmoil i was in, and i never had the motivation to do anything with myself besides taking a shower, and even then i was rather neglectful of my hygiene. i had plenty of support from those close to me. my mom in particular did her absolute best to make sure i was comfortable and felt loved and cared for, and i did feel that way. however, at this point in my life i was a ticking time bomb and i don't think any one person would've been able to cut any cords to put a stop to the timer.

on september 26th at around 1:45pm, i made an attempt on my life. i'm not sure what it was about that day in particular, but it was then that i decided i didn't want to deal with anything anymore. fortunately for me, i was stupid enough to post what was essentially a suicide note to my main tumblr blog, which friends of mine took notice of. this, of course, worried people and one of my friends called the police to my house. long story short, i spent a day in the hospital and was sent to a psychiatric hospital the following afternoon.

i was in the psychiatric hospital for little less than a week, and if i were to detail my experience here it would make this post at least 3x longer than i intend it to be. (and i do plan on dedicating a large post to it someday) in short, it was an eye-opening experience and i left with a better view on myself as a person. i was discharged on october 3rd and i'm currently in therapy and looking for other methods to help myself.

the doctor at the psychiatric hospital diagnosed me with adjustment disorder with depressed mood, although i'm made to believe i have borderline personality disorder as i get unhealthily attached to people and my entire mood depends on how they interact with me. due to this belief, i'm hesitant to get too close to people because i don't want to risk becoming emotionally attached/dependent on one (1) sole person and my entire mental wellbeing collapsing due to something like us parting ways. so at this moment i'm not sure if i'll ever be able to pursue a romantic relationship.

for the week i've been home, i've been trying to readjust to normal life again after becoming used to the static routine present in the psychiatric hospital. i've found myself becoming easily irritated and overwhelmed by even the slightest bit of noise in my home because the hospital was always so quiet and calm. i'm unsure if this irritability will go away as i become re-accustomed to the semi-chaotic nature of my home.

on top of all of this, my grandfather passed away yesterday and, as of writing this, i'm in a state of emotional numbness and i've somewhat disassociated from the situation. as it stands currently, life doesn't feel too real and i'm uncertain of how i'm going to deal with this when my emotions finally come to the surface.

that's it for the depressing portion of this post. everything from here will be pertaining to the state of this blog, what i'm going to be doing with it, and also my presence on other social medias among other things.

for the past three or so months i haven't felt very compelled to post to this blog. when i went on hiatus a while ago, i thought time away from this blog would reignite my passion for it and i'd be able to come back and do things like i used to. and while that was the case for a while, i quickly lost interest again and sometime in mid-late july i let my queued posts do everything and i barely posted or reblogged anything aside from gofundmes.

while littlest pet shop is still one of my special interests, i'm no longer as fixated on it as i was when i first started this blog. i once debated turning this blog into a catchall for my toy interest and no longer posting daily lps, however that idea no longer appeals to me and i think i'm going to be calling it quits for this blog.

i'm not happy about this decision, but i no longer get joy from logging on and posting to this blog anymore.

i find it foolish to delete this blog and never use it again, though. i still have over eight thousand followers and i believe i should use that to share and bring awareness to donation posts. so this blog will not be going anywhere.

if you want to follow me elsewhere, my main blog is @joplinspiderz and my art blog is @mushyspiderz. i'm trying to put more focus on my presence in art spaces, as i want to get attention for my art and earn money doing things like commissions, as i'm looking for other sources of income so that i can pay for things i need and can stop feeling like a freeloader in my mother's house (that is half of a joke. but i do really want to help my mom with her bills and such as well as my personal things.)

i also have an instagram, threads, and twitter where i will be posting my art as well. the audience i want for my art is people in my age range (18 and older) as i tend to draw things and characters that are suggestive/sexual in nature. all three socials are currently bare (that will change, of course.) the handle for my instagram/threads is joplinspiderz and my twitter is mushyspiderz.

the person i have been portraying on this blog has been a somewhat sanitized version of who i actually am, as i wanted to create a safe and comfortable space for those who age regress because i noticed a good chunk of the people interacting with my posts were age regressers. i'm 18 years old and i enjoy consuming media that is sexual in nature as well as horror movies. i like to include sexual themes in my artwork and my writing as well. you will not find anything outright pornographic on my socials, however sometime in the future when/if i'm able to, i would like to create a patreon where i post nsfw locked behind a paywall (profiting off of horny fools sounds like so much fun /silly)

i sincerely thank everyone who followed this silly little blog of mine and interacted with me. the littlest pet shop community is one of the best fandoms i've been apart of, everyone i've met and spoken to has been so kind. running this blog was also the reason i encountered two people who i consider to be some of my closest and best friends. if i didn't create this blog i'm not sure if i would've met them.

i've always felt joy when opening my inbox here and seeing messages from people who say things like littlest pet shop was a part of their childhood, and that my blog brought them back to their childhood and made them happy. i'm so very glad i was able to give people a sense of joy and nostalgia. running this blog has been a big part of me getting over being seen as "weird" or "cringe" by societal standards. i embrace being seen as "cringe" and i have my rare lps on full display in my bedroom.

again, i thank everyone who followed me here, and if you wish to support me you can follow any of my social medias where i will be posting my artwork. i will be logging on here every so often to boost palestinian gofundmes and donation posts, and i encourage everyone who comes across those to share as well.

that's all for now, farewell. 🩷

[darkkitty1208]

on fic writing and fandom: where am i going forward?

So. It's a bloody dull Friday and I'm writing this post--have been meaning to, for a while--because I can't stop thinking about it. It's just a few (a lot, actually) thoughts I've had in my mind the past few days that I've decided to spill into a single post, which turned out far longer than it needed to be, but nothing too important. Under the cut.

I've been a fanfic writer for a while now. Not a long time by any means, but a while nonetheless. My first fic--which is now orphaned like a few of its brothers for undisclosed reasons, though if you're an og you might be able to guess why--was dated back to the 18th of November 2021. 3 years later and I've got a humble 89 works and counting (the orphaned works and unposted wips unincluded). I can safely say I've improved quite a lot since then.

Where are you going with this, then, Kitty? Surely you aren't here just to brag about your writing progress?

Well. Not exactly. But I'll start with this: I guess what I'm trying to say is I've lost the spark.

You know. The old feeling. That boost of serotonin you get after you finish a piece you're proud of, or when you get lovely reviews on ao3, or when you get a kudos email, or a new mutual, or some wild tags under your silly post. The spark. I haven't felt it in a long time, now. The last time it's been so palpable was... I'm not sure. Probably last year's October. That was a lot of fun. I was most prolific in fic writing, that year. It shouldn't feel like a long time ago. Because it wasn't.

Don't get me wrong. I love all this. All that's going on right now. The comments I'm getting--even if fewer than I had before--and all the other interactions, I appreciate and enjoy and love them so, so much. And writing my newer fic projects are well exciting. But it just isn't the same anymore. I'm afraid it never will be.

(Maybe it has something to do with the lack of interactions lately. Maybe? I don't really know, either. I'm sure we're all well aware the fandom is past its peak, and with the current developments in the MCU I am frankly unsurprised, but I dunno.)

I guess that's part of the reason I've been less active lately. I've been inactive as a whole this year, admittedly, and disappearing far too often for far too long (and I notice some of my friends are, too). I just didn't get the same joy from being in a fandom like I had when I first started this blog, or my ao3 account.

In hindsight, I've probably been a little too dependent on fandom to provide me serotonin. The past few years have been hard, the years before that, too. Life just keeps kicking me in the arse time and time again. I guess I've been using fandom and fic writing as a coping mechanism, and once I've had my fill, the joy dies off to something a little more dull. Like a gum I've been chewing for too long that the sweetness has since worn off.

Honestly? I don't want it to be this way. I want to live without being so dependent on my presence online. I want to live without only knowing joy through internet interactions. I've got to learn to. It sounds silly, but it's true. (I think I may be slightly chronically online, oh no. x'D)

So naturally my first instinct is to distance myself a little. I contemplated quitting, but I can't do that. I don't see myself ever doing that, no matter how many times my brain convinces me that I might.

When this year started, I had set some goals for writing. One of them was to write for more whumptober prompts than I did last year or complete them all. I did like 21 prompts or something last year. Of 31. Within a little more than a month. While still balancing all the life stuff I had going on. This is, if not obvious, an extremely ambitious goal. I am not insane. I don't know what I was thinking. I can't possibly do that now, can I? Not with all the stuff that's been happening.

...

Can I?

...

Yeah, no. Definitely not.

See, that's another thing: writing. Probably the thing I'm trying to get at in this post but otherwise derailed completely from. Fuck my brain.

I'm sure many of you have noticed that I've been writing significantly less. I still post, obviously, but not as much as like, last year when the number of works I had went from a few to far too much. That had helped me improve quite a lot, actually, but those days I barely slept because I just insisted to replace my sleep time with Writing Shit For The Gays. It was pretty unhealthy now that I look back at it. My sleep schedule is still shit now but, yk. Some things just never change.

I was really, really caught up on wanting to be good at writing. Like, really good. I wanted to make awesome things. I wanted to write like a real fucking pro. Like all the more popular fandom authors I look up to. I want to be like the big dogs in fandom. It sounds so silly. I did everything; sprinting daily, setting a minimum of 500 words writing sessions every day, trying new writing styles, churning out works after works, writing for prompts and events and gifts and the like. I was enjoying it, yes, but was it really something I did for myself? Or was it because I wanted to please other people or impress other people for their validation, which is something I'm entirely too dependent of? Was it for the numbers?

Well. It was more for that than for me, I realised a little too late.

So yeah. Fuck wanting to be good. I want to write for the hell of it. I want to write something that's for me. Not what the majority of the fandom or other people want to read, but for me. Which is why I absolutely loved writing works like just a matter of time, how to kill a god, or how to become a god, because they're not meant for other people but myself. (Ironically that last work is a gift but, yk. I still liked it.) I know I joke about self-projecting a lot, but it's been seriously helping me rediscover the joy of writing that doesn't come from the incessant need to be good or perfect or focus on producing more and more and more. It makes me feel like a kid again. Also, I'm only realising this now but I'd rather get like 5 people who enjoy reading my works so much and express them to me rather than 100 people who silently thumbs up at me and then go away to consume another fic or demand more. (All this to say I still love interactions, it just shouldn't be my no. 1 priority to get them when writing fanfics.)

But yeah. None of those works are perfect. They're not meant to be. But they're mine. They're me. They represent me. And it's so, so great to feel that in writing. I've been so stuck up on being some sort of content machine. I'm doing this for myself, how could I forget? I've been saying this since the beginning, I don't know why I'm still struggling to do it. God. It's ridiculous.

Anyway. That's that. This has become a very long ramble. Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk. And for letting me waste your time, if you make it to the end of this post.

[eoieopda]

[ateez as tinder dudes]

this is a joke, but i’m also convinced that i’m correct, so… there’s that. also, don’t look at me, incorporating a fourth (FOURTH!!!) group on my blog. i don’t want to talk about it 🫣

hongjoong

he’s treating this like a portfolio. he’s got the max number of pics uploaded, and they’re all editorial, like he’s expecting to be scouted. is he repping a brand? is he just flexing that he’s got better style than you ever will? he knows this is tinder, right? no.

absolutely no bio, whatsoever. his age isn’t even listed, somehow. you know nothing about him except that he owns more than one cowboy hat, and honestly? that’s all you need to know.

you’re actually 98.4% sure that he’s a catfish — who just looks like that? — but that’s not going to stop you from swiping right to see if he did, too.

he did not.

seonghwa

he’s intentionally using pics of him with his mother, with kids, with small animals, etc. because he’s calculating. couldn’t be more of a targeted attack if the profile was computer-generated. frankly, you can’t say if it was or wasn’t. suspiciously perfect.

that’s where the tinder prowess stops. he doesn’t know how the swiping feature works so he’s swiped right on everyone. oops.

his bio has subsections — plural — with endearingly dorky interests laid out in full. he’s well-rounded and objectively attractive to literally all people. man is everybody’s type, esp. yours.

tragically, he has never once responded to a message, and he never will.

yunho

he must’ve made this as a joke, right? every picture of him is hilariously unflattering or a recreation of a meme or some childhood photo, except the last one — which is a meme. it’s something obscure that appeals to the sense of humor of exactly .01% of the population. you can tell by looking at him that he is chronically online and had unrestricted internet access as a kid.

his bio is also absurd. this dude has something like “my first words were, ‘this human form is limiting’”, and it’s extremely polarizing. on purpose. puts his whole personality right there, right from the get-go because it will ward the wrong people off and flag down the exact niche he’s targeting.

i feel like he’s either a lukewarm conversationalist that makes you wonder how the rest of his profile was so funny, or the first conversation is an incredible, god-tier bit — and then, when the bit runs its course, you realize that he deleted his profile, never to be seen again.

rip

yeosang

all of his pictures paint an image of someone hard and edgy, and you’ve got it all wrong. you’ve been fully bamboozled, bestie. that is a whole ass fairy princess.

always messages first and/or responds immediately, revealing that he’s the most “uwu” person of all time. seriously, what the fuck? people unironically use “hehehe”? in this day and age? ^_^

unexpected gem. the person he actually is isn’t someone you would normally shoot your shot with, but you’re not mad about it.

one of the rare few on the app who would rather die than find a hookup (the idea makes him itchy, okay?) but he will actually seek and find a future spouse, just watch.

san

most of his photos are of him and his friend (it’s wooyoung. of course it’s wooyoung), and the subtext is so confusing that you can’t tell if they’re looking for a third or are just guys being buds ??? what is happening, and why are you so into it?

the photos that don’t include his friend (boyfriend? seriously, what is going on there?) are all action shots because he needs you to know that he is athletic and built. you do not need to wonder what he looks like naked because he’s not wearing a shirt in any of them.

he’s got the stock photo equivalent of a bio. most uninteresting thing you’ve ever seen, so you do not hit him up.

you should have :( you would’ve loved him.

mingi

i regret to inform you that this man has the most cringeworthy online presence of all time. god, he’s so fuckboi-coded!! and you hate him for it, but you hate yourself even more for being into because you sure are, diva!!!

i feel like the song on his profile is extremely questionable, either because it’s some bizarre, ambient instrumental; by someone that’s been justifiably cancelled and you don’t know whether or not he knows that; or worse, it’s his own.

all of his pictures are group pictures. you cannot tell for the life of you which one of them he is, requiring you to go to the instagram he’s referenced in his bio — which is exactly the point. the instagram links to his soundcloud because it can get worse.

if you actually bite the bullet and respond to his shitty pick-up line, he’s the bbygirl to end all bbygirls. absolute heart of gold. you almost want to smack him for being so bad at marketing himself.

get him a PR person to straighten his shit out; mingi is fired.

wooyoung

this motherfucker has deleted and remade his profile 8,000 times because he needs to “reset his matches” aka has spent every waking moment swiping.

he probably pays for tinder so he can swipe in other locations — not because he’s looking for anyone, but because he wants people to look at him.

you have to wonder who took the photos because they’re sure as shit not selfies but they’re all vaguely chic thirst traps (it was san. of course it was san.)

when it comes to messages, he either communicates exclusively with emojis or gifs, or he only responds to compliments. small talk? NOPE. tell him he’s pretty or get out :’)

if you do wind up linking (because the whole conversation thing is a lost cause), he’s insane. you’ll spend one night with him, never see him again, and you will remember him on your deathbed.

was he a ghost or a fever dream? you’ll never know.

jongho

he’s only here because his friends made him, and he will make that crystal clear. nothing else will be, though. he’s either got an extremely dry sense of humor + is deeply ironic, or he’s genuinely that odd.

all of his photos are identical selfies (expression, location, angle, etc.) and the only difference is the shirt he’s wearing. is…. is that on purpose? is he being funny, or is he seriously that much of a cartoon character? WHO KNOWS.

tbh, he’s the dude that makes a profile, finds an IRL partner immediately, and totally forgets he has a profile because he deleted the app ages ago. this is tragic; he would’ve been just your type.

message him all you want, bestie. it won’t work.

[sincerely-sofie]

I saw your tag about meeting your boyfriend because of posting on Tumblr and I'm very curious as to how that happened. Like, did you find each other's blogs, saw you had stuff in common and met up IRL? What happened? Please give us details (if you're willing to talk about it, no worries if not!)

Also, for a boyfriend tag, may I suggest... Calcium. Cuz you're a skeleton and calcium makes bones stronger... I'll see myself out

(Referencing the tags of this post)

Oh my gosh. Buddy you have just opened up Pandora’s box. Brace yourself for the most adorable couple origin story ever.

He followed me fairly early on into the process of me posting my work on Tumblr. I don’t remember exactly, but I think my TPiaG mini comic “Heart-to-Heartbreak” was the first post he ever reblogged from me. After that, he was super enthusiastic and involved with my blog and engaged with basically every post I ever made. This guy was one of THE followers of my work— if I posted something, he was always there to like it and share super thoughtful commentary or hilarious jokes.

I absolutely adored him even back then, and we had barely exchanged a handful of messages on Tumblr where he thanked me for inspiring him to get back into art and writing, and I blubbered about how meaningful that was to me. We eventually followed each other on Spotify and I think that’s about the point when I really should have realized I had it bad for him. I was CONSTANTLY rambling to my mom about how much I wanted to be this internet stranger’s best friend, but I was super hesitant because our family has been huge on online stranger danger and never really talking to anyone unless you know exactly who they are in real life. I’m an adult and all, yeah, but I was still super anxious about internet strangers at large— though he never once made me uncomfortable or wary :>

Eventually, he made a goofy post about it being his birthday, and I bolted to tell my mom about that and how I didn’t have enough time that day to polish up any content of his favorite characters I’ve written and post it as a gift for him. I was utterly distraught and pretty much full-on monologuing to my ever-so patient mother about how much I wanted to befriend this man and how amazing he was and how shy I felt about the matter, and she looked me dead in the eyes and told me to ask him if he wanted to message each other more and get to know each other better.

I sent him a message over Tumblr, we exchanged Discord usernames, and I’m pretty sure it was just over a week of messaging and getting to know each other more and more every day later when he told me he thought he was in love with me— to which I very eloquently rattled off a bunch of nonsense that ended in “I don’t know how to communicate this other than by saying ‘dude, same’.”

After that, we’ve only gotten more and more mutually obsessed. Thankfully he’s in the same country as me, and we’re even timezone neighbors, so he’s not on the opposite side of the world— and when I realized some of my household were going on a trip to the same state where he lived for a family wedding, I SCRAMBLED to insert myself into that trip last-minute. We had originally thought that we’d meet up when he could drive to my state (a process that would take a long time because of some complicating factors), but when I realized my family were flying down there, I was practically foaming at the mouth with the thought of seeing him so much sooner. We met up not that long ago and were even able to meet some of each other’s family members (my family absolutely adores him, and I think his likes me a fair bit too, hehe). But listen: when I tell you I adored him before, I was absolutely head-over-heels for him when we met in person. I got to hug him and I had this thought come to mind of “Oh. This is the person I want to marry.” And I’ve never once doubted it :>

During the times we met up we mostly sat around and basked in each other’s presence and stared at each other. I ended up breaking eye contact a lot because I kept getting flustered and also because this man is TALL and I had to periodically rest my neck 😂 I was able to give him some pins I had made of our PMD team that represents us, and my boyfriend. My boyfriend, you guys. He had the gall to send me a screenshot of an eBay listing of the world’s most adorable Snorlax plush weeks before while we were on a call together, bought it immediately after I had said I loved the plush’s face as we hung up, and then GAVE ME IT WHEN WE MET UP.

Look at him. That’s my son now. I was trying to think of what to name the little guy when my toddler niece dubbed him Tummy. My boyfriend approves of the monicker— as he should, because it’s the bestest name for the bestest boy.

TL;DR— He followed me on tumblr, I desperately wanted to be friends with him and sent him my Discord username on his birthday, we exchanged “I love you”s a week later, and I was almost sick on a plane because I was so excited to see him during a trip to his state for a family member’s wedding. We are absolutely obsessed with each other and kind of instantly Knew from the get-go that we’re going to be each other’s Person™️.

As for the tag, I'm not sure I’ll go with it but I’m starting to consider “The Boyfriend Bird Feeder”, because it works out to the acronym BFBF which I find funny, I mainly want to make the tag as a way for him to easily find posts where I’m talking about how amazing he is whenever he needs a pick-me-up (and so people can block the tag if they find me raving about my man so much annoying lol), and his persona that we spent all day yesterday cooking up looks like this:

[beatingdrumspouringwine]

Communication with the Gods

This is related to this post that I reblogged a few nights ago, which talked about how vocal folks on the internet can be about talking to the Gods, and also how this can sometimes be a little misleading. After reblogging it, I started to think about my own interactions and relationship with the Gods, and how they too don't often fit the internet's view of Godly interactions, and figured that I would share a bit about my own practice to show that face-to-face talking with Gods isn't necessarily the only way one can commune with Them.

To start off, I'll say that when I was first dipping my toes into Hellenic Polytheism, I was with groups that were very vocal about the Gods always talking to them. It was the kind of thing where they would be talking about having full-fledged conversations, or tea parties with the Gods, which caused me to put a lot of pressure on myself to experience the same. It definitely took a while after all that to have a relatively normal relationship with my Gods. As of right now, the vast majority of the time that I pray to the Gods, I feel and hear nothing. Maybe I'll have a sense of inner peace, but I think that comes from within more than anything else. Something about the rhythms in the way the prayers are spoken is soothing to me.

Hermes tends to take a very subtle approach in His interactions with me. Sometimes I know He's there only because I hit more green lights than I was expecting, or a car ride went smoother than the traffic would allow. Sometimes I find coins laying on the ground, heads-up, after a particularly successful trip, or after a desperate prayer to Him; or I find items that have been lost for a while, sitting in a very conspicuous place. Hermes isn't subtle, but He also isn't very obvious. It's almost as if He moves when my back is turned, and when I turn around again, there's a very faint sense that maybe someone was there.

Dionysos, meanwhile, has been a bit more There for me. Sometimes, there's a heavier presence to Him being around, almost as if a person is standing in the space with me. Other times, I won't feel a presence, but rather an intense emotion, that I usually can't quite place. For me, it feels like something akin to the type of madness shown in the Bacchae, although I'm fully aware of my state, if that makes sense. Rarely, I've felt His hands around mine when I pray, although it's more of a pressure than the physical feeling of hands (it's all about vibes!).

The few times I've had an experience that was a deeper communication, they were relatively abstract. One time, it came as a sudden rush of realization on a cruise ship that the Gods love us (that will be another post, lol). A few times, it's been strangely intense dreams, in which I wake up from them and have a strong feeling that it meant something, one of which led me to create this blog. And the One Singular time I have ever heard a God (Dionysos) speak directly to me, it was only one sentence, while I was trying to take a nap, and I was able to feel His presence for a while afterwards.

Anyways, this has come as a bit of a ramble, but I think the overall point that my ADHD-addled mind is trying to make is that the Gods communicate in many different ways, and not all of them are direct God-to-human talking. It's more like subtle communications that say "I'm here, I've never left you." There's something to be said, and I think this idea stretches across multiple religions, about just being still and quiet with your Gods, and the Gods being there in that silence. If we really think about it, animals have only been able to hear for about 275 million years. That's almost no time compared to the age of Earth (4 billion years), and the universe (13 billion years), and the Gods were around even before that. They lived for so long in the silence, and They are there with you in the silence as well. <3

[bookofmirth]

i know this sounds silly, but i recently received my first anonymous hate message - i really don’t have much of a presence in the acotar fandom, i have a blog where i basically just reblog, have made a couple of posts but they’ve only got a few hundred likes - nothing major. and i got a really nasty message in regard to my username ( it’s related to elain and lucien ) and the things i post and it’s just so deflating. i’m just here minding my own business, have never even received an ask before now - and upon opening it, i just felt like the air was sucked out my lungs. it’s so deflating and kind of makes me want to just delete the app for a while. i just wanted to ask how you deal with this sort of thing ? ive been on tumblr for years and been involved with all different fandoms - percy jackson and hannibal and harry potter and have never had anything like this :/

Hi friend, I am so sorry that someone did that to you. It's so freaking unnecessary and rude, and until it happens to people, I really don't think they understand how horrible it feels. I have gotten super upset at messages I've received in the past, and it's easy for other people to say "oh just ignore it" but experiencing it firsthand is completely different. I totally get how different it is to see it targeted to oneself, rather than at someone else. It can definitely knock the wind out of your sails, but you can get back up! All this is to say that it absolutely does not sound silly, because I know exactly what you mean.

If I ever get messages that seem rude, I do a few things:

I don't read the whole thing. It's pretty easy to tell if someone is being a jackass, so I just delete the message right away. This is why I said messages that "seem" rude, I rarely read the whole thing haha, I roll my eyes and delete

Block the anon, since that's an option now.

I go about my day like nothing happened. I love to delete those and then answer other messages and/or reblog and imagine them refreshing my blog constantly, waiting to see they've upset me. Never gonna happen! mwaahahaha choke, bitch.

I think the most important thing to remember is that the things they have said are a reflection of them, not of you. If someone feels comfortable leaving vitriol in your inbox, then that's not someone you either want to know, or whose good opinion you want. Personally, I only care about what my friends and family think of me - and even then it's on a sliding scale. If some random on the internet who doesn't actually know me has an opinion of me, that's their problem.

If you want to dm me, feel free! Don't let them take away your enjoyment of the things you like. They aren't worth your time or attention.

[subliminalbo]

A Much Too Long Story About Subliminalbo

Oh, hi there. My name's Bo. I write mind control smut and make white eyes manips. I've been back on Tumblr for a minute now, but wanted to write a kind of about the author page? This was supposed to be the first section of an info page that included DNIs and content warnings but I'll figure that out soon. This kind of got out of control because goddamn do I like to talk. Anyway, before I jump into my dumb story I want to get the most important part out of the way:

I'm 28 years old. He/him. If you are transphobic, homophobic, racist, or ablest I will not interact with you. I am a cishet male so if I ever say anything that sounds profoundly privileged please correct me. I do not want to be part of the problem.

I'm approaching ten years with a presence in the online hypno manip space. Mind control has been an interest of mine since I was a child, following me from Saturday morning cartoons to weekend Toonami blocks and eventually here. As a kid it was just a trope I loved, and gradually I started recognizing it in more and more places. Yu-Gi-Oh!, Archie's Weird Mysteries, Ben Ten, Code Lyoko, Codename Kids Next Door, The Justice League, Teen Titans, and of course Totally fucking Spies all played their own roles in bringing me here.

As a teen I trolled the internet for whatever mind control related content I could find. I read sketchy Geocity sites and Blogger pages. I joined Yahoo Groups dedicated to cataloging and categorizing incidents of mind control in popular culture, and eventually it led me to the weird little community on Deviantart.

At the same time I was a member of a few non-fetish related role playing forums. (1) That eventually led me to Tumblr where I was an active blogger until the mid tens. The only reason I bring this part of my online life up here is because it was how I discovered white eyes manips. I stumbled on this Supernatural blog that specialized in demon eyes edits. (2) I never actively followed, but would occasionally drop in to see if any celebrities that I liked had been manipped.

When I graduated high school, I found myself both newly single and with a ton of sudden free time on my hands. I started experimenting with GIMP, following tutorials that the owner of the Supernatural blog had posted and soon began developing my own techniques.

I mean like, look how far I've come.

Admittedly the novelty of hot celebs with white eyes wore off on me pretty quickly, and I started writing stories to pair with my manips as soon as I began posting. I picked Deviantart because it was the first place I'd ever known an erotic mind control community to exist outside of skeevy Yahoo Groups.

The stories weren't even supposed to be smutty at first. My goal was to recapture the kind of stupid mind control hijinks that I remembered from those cartoons. I guess it's just a symptom of being a horny eighteen year old that I immediately turned to smut.

But mostly I just wanted to create the kind of content that I was looking for when I was joining Yahoo Groups. The erotic mind control scene has always been dominated by interests that don't necessarily align with mine. (3) At 18 that meant supermodels, mostly, so my first series was this patched together corporate thriller type thing where an evil lingerie company brainwashes supermodels to sign contracts away from Victoria's Secret. It had sex and brainwashing and inexplicable plot twists.

My first post to Deviantart featured a hastily written caption about Adriana Lima being abducted from a party. Somehow this ballooned into a bonkers seventeen part series called Fleur-de-lis. I've been running away from it ever since.

I felt pretty icky writing stories about real life people though, and soon after I finished Fleur-de-lis I moved onto writing about original characters. I took the philosophy of the old role playing days and used celebrities as the faces for my characters, but have been firm about the line between fiction and reality since. If I'm being honest, at some point I transitioned fully in my mind to a smut writer. If the white eyes stuff wasn't the most popular thing about my work I wouldn't even do it.

It's just a matter of fact for a cis hetero male in this space that there's a lot of soul searching to do. It's not lost on me that I started making manips during a period of intense loneliness in my life. I've been guilty of making more than one goodbye post just to return a few months later. There are a lot of things that I want to do with my life and many of those are creative. This has been my most consistent creative outlet over the last ten years and the thing that always brings me back is the feeling that I'm leaving something unfinished. (4)

It always comes back to the stories for me. I understand that fetishes are one way our minds compartmentalize and even overcome fear and trauma, but I really do believe that for me it was just seeing Ghostbusters too young and watching too much anime. I dunno, I grew up in the church and used to be super terrified of demon possession. Anyway, I am not a dominant person and I don't base the mind controllers in my stories as reflections of my own personality. I feel that in a lot of mind control fiction you can feel the writer on the page, you can see how the hypnotist is a veiled insert of themselves. But I find mind controllers to be some of the dullest characters in these stories. I'm more interested in transformations. How someone can be fundamentally changed into something that they are not, something they never could have imagined they could become. I don't know where that comes from. That feels like a trauma thing.

So here I am. Back on Deviantart and Tumblr after my big retirement, building worlds and overcomplicating the assignment more than I ever have before. If you're reading, I really appreciate you. Feedback is always welcome, positive or negative. Even if it's a few words of support, it means a lot to me to know that I'm not just tossing hard work into a void. I also like to talk a lot. This is just the first of a few "about me" stuff that I'm going to do and it'll eventually become a part of a larger page for FAQs and the much needed content warning. I just wanted to say a few words about myself that turned into like a thousand for some reason?

Anyway, I'm posting this and going to bed. Byye

1. We don't have to talk about the fandom that inspired me to write over 800 pages of dumb role playing bullshit. 2. Last I checked it's still kicking. On the surface it's completely innocuous and has never posted anything that was by definition NSFW, but it kind of has that ASMR vibe where you're pretty sure, somehow, there's something sexual about this. 3. What even is the deal with Kaa? I get for a lot of people Kaa was probably their introduction to mind control tropes as children, but it's a fucking snake. There are literally no good outcomes for these stories. Like is he gonna fuck the ladies? Because I'm pretty sure he wants to eat the ladies. Neither of those are good options to me. 4. I don't plan on leaving again. I've come to accept that fetishes are not necessarily a reflection of some inherent desire to do harm. This is, in part, a discovery made thanks to my partner who has her own problematic fantasies that are counterintuitive to her values.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

also, like, "just stop giving them attention" doesn't work for con artists, which is what James is. they thrive off of people not knowing who they are, because then they can con those people, and you can't ever stop spreading that awareness because there will always be people who are only just stumbling across him now and don't know the history.

like, okay, look at Andy Blake/thanfiction. this is a guy who keeps running the same scam – trying to be fandom famous by pretending to be some kind of creative wunderkind and also, for some reason, starting cults centered around him – over and over again. he's done it in multiple fandoms, most notably LOTR and Harry Potter.

and for a long time, no one put together that "the LOTR hobbit cult guy" and the "Harry Potter fanfic cult guy" were the same person, because why would they? the anonymity of the internet and him coming up with wildly different backstories for both personas made connecting the two very difficult, even if you had somehow been present in both of those little fandom niches (which most people weren't - you could have been an avid LOTR and Harry Potter fan and never heard of either incident because of how massive those fandoms were).

BUT. fast forward to 2018. at this point he has not only run two cults and scammed people out of a lot of money and emotional energy, but there are now whole blogs devoted to debunking his many, many lies. he tries to worm his way into a friend group and discloses that he had "some mental health issues in the past" that caused some "fandom drama," without specifying that he was a fucking cult leader, abuser, and self-admitted rapist.

and at first it worked... until one of the friends Googled his name and found out exactly what he hadn't been telling them. they immediately kicked him to the curb after that, because, uh, this is a guy who starts cults? and abuses people?? and is a literal con artist, including a conviction for fucking charity fraud??? none of which they'd have known if there weren't people actively discussing him and making sure he didn't try to resurface and pull another scam again.

so now let's look at James. so far, he has:

started two scams – his Youtube channel and Telos, which I count as separate because some people donated to one but not the other – to con people out of thousands upon thousands of actual real-life money. not just attention and adoration and being treated like an authority and a celebrity – though he clearly wants that too – but, like, actual money.

used his "apologies"/"attempts to make amends" to try to get more money (ex: monetizing his second apology video)

changed his online handles multiple times to try to distance himself from Hbomb's video

created multiple sockpuppet accounts to argue on his behalf and post plagiarized nudes

created a fake linkedin for himself under a false name with almost certainly fake credentials and experience

attempted to rebrand his con on tiktok, where people might not have been exposed to the Hbomb video as much as on Youtube

and he's done all of this without ever once paying back any of the people he stole from or fully acknowledging what he did wrong.

there are always going to be people who, for whatever reason, will be unfamiliar with him, even if it's solely because they only just became old enough to be on the internet independently (remember, a lot of his followers were very young queer people who weren't familiar with actual queer media criticism and history). the only way to counteract that is to blow the whistle whenever he tries to start a new con.

if he does literally anything else with his life, then yeah, he should be ignored. if he gets a job at Tim Horton's, no one needs to go up to his manager and be like, "You need to fire this man, he's an internet con artist!" if he's only making Timbits, not plagiarized video essays.

but if he tries to start a new con – and, to be clear, he has ALREADY tried to establish a new online presence to gain followers WITHIN LIKE TWO MONTHS OF HIS FAKE SUICIDE ATTEMPT – then "oh, just ignore him" doesn't work. because there are going to be people who don't know to ignore him, and won't know he's bad news unless they see someone else blowing the whistle.

Okay but like he's not working as a video essayist anymore though. He was trying to rebrand on tiktok and the "free advertising" the "Online Leftist Discourse Industrial Complex" gave him made him stop doing that. It's because people keep pointing out that he lied and scammed people that he's not currently lying and scamming people on youtube and tiktok.

On the hbomberguy subreddit there's a weekly thread talking about good youtubers that aren't as famous. It's a weekly thread that's trying to give attention to people with less clout in their community who do deserve that attention. They've been doing that for months. By contrast, they spent five months NOT talking about James Somerton until they found out that 1) he was trying to go back to tiktok, 2) also he was never sorry about plagiarism, and 3) he was absolutely manipulating people with that suicide note.

I know that some people out there consider all criticism a personal and hateful attack, but do you maybe think there's a reason why The Left™ chose to show that this specific guy had two alt accounts? Do you think they chose to show the tweets in which he goes "plagiarism and lies are no big deal, stop being angry about it," "if plagiarism and lies are a big deal then his cowriter did it," and "you people made him kill himself" for some reason? Do you think it may have something to do with him trying to rebrand on tiktok after he wrote a suicide note that made a bunch of people call the people who accused him of plagiarism and lying of being murderers?

[peachiekinz]

i don’t know who i am. i don’t know what i want. if you are looking for friendship, i can tell you that i don’t have spoons most days, but what i do have are a very particular set of interests. interests i have acquired over a very long life. interests that make me a nightmare for neurotypicals to handle. if you don’t follow me or reblog my posts, that’ll be the end of it. i will not message you, i will not bother you. but if you do, i will follow you, i will message you, and i will annoy you. 🤓🤭

hi, i’m lisa, i’m 30 and i never fucking learned how to cope healthily.

i’m weird. i’m a weirdo. i don’t fit in and i don’t wanna fit in with anyone who would mock someone for their taste in tv shows, or any other reason, for that matter. don’t mock people, it’s hurtful & not funny at all.

if you haven’t noticed yet, i love to communicate in references from tv shows & movies, in one form or another. my favourite is to share the exact clip from the thing, but it can’t always be found, second best is a gif, again if it can be found & i remember where the reference is from, which doesn’t always happen either 🫣🤭 i also really like to communicate my emotions with emojis! although, they don’t always mean what you think they mean, because apparently i don’t use emojis as dictated by social media.. but i don’t remember getting a handbook… so i just use the ones i like the most, and assume you understand the meanings 🤷🏼‍♀️🤣🤭. if you don’t, just ask 😊

although i like to use pop culture to communicate, i consider myself to be a huge noob. mainly just on the internet, but technically i’m a big noob in most aspects of life… but specifically in the sense that i’ve never put myself online, never had a community of acquaintances. i’ve just never felt comfortable displaying any part of myself in a digital form. now that’s not to say i’ve never used the internet before. i’ve been on websites. i’ve been using tumblr off and on for so long, i don’t remember when i made my first blog. all i know is it doesn’t exist anymore. and even then, i just mass-reblogged my hyperfixation of the moment, each topic with its own blog.. that was so hard to manage, i just gave up & quit tumblr. then some time after that, when i decided to put a part of myself online for the first time, i met my now- ex husband. let’s just say, it didn’t end well.. it took me finding a small community of people on twitter, of all places, to become even slightly comfortable with internet strangers knowing things about me.

while i've learned a lot from that community, it made me slightly less comfortable with large groups of people. i find socializing in general to be very draining, i think because i'm usually masking & forcing myself to conform to normalcy in order to be appealing to others. the more i unmask, the less people stay around me, and i'm not complaining. i’m pretty much entirely unable to unmask in the presence of people. groups of people, even just internet people, perceiving me is one of the worst feelings ever.. i’m terrified of having a lot of people seeing me, my posts, my thoughts & my real personality… but at the same time … i really would like some people to relate to, in more ways than just one or two things in common. i guess the only way of finding that would be to put my dumb little complaints online & hope someone vibes with it in the same way i do… 🫣🤣

[mrpenguinpants]

Diluc: Comfort HCs

Oh no worries anon! We’re getting through everything and I can just see the top. I’m not sure if people saw it - probably not - but my entire blog has devolved into “See this genshin character? Animal.” and I refuse to have another cat character so I’m making Diluc a hawk.  

Apparently (maybe) Diluc’s bird is a nightingale [voicelines]. But I don’t really see Diluc the kind of guy to serenade you at night in secret because your father doesn’t approve of your marriage.

---

Today’s appreciation post goes to fulltimeventisimp. Tumblr throws a goddamn fit when I try to tag people (even though I literally have a tag list but that’s apparently not good enough) so I hope you see this^^ You’ve been so nice and caring to me I feel so soft 😭 and I hope you’re doing alright! I’m remembering to take breaks and rest  💕💕

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Semi Part 1: Relationship HCs [I would read this just for the last point]

Diluc Ver: Jealous HCs

[Masterlist]

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[taglist]  <- if you want to be added, please read this first.

@hanniejji​  @mikeysbike​ @unionwitch​ @musekala​ @twistedsunnshiii​ @stanzastic​ @akaasea​ @xoneaboveallx​ @adoring-ghost​ @asheseiler​ @childelover​ @dilucsz​

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Diluc: Comfort HCs

Diluc has always had either an aloof or professional persona based on who he needed to talk to. In both cases, no matter the subject or how Diluc talked, there would always be some sort of forced distance so no one would mistaken it as familiarity or friendliness. There were only a two cases where he felt comfortable and those were with close friends and his staff. The third case being Kaeya but Diluc prefers to not acknowledge him and stashes that folder away. Even with friend’s such as Jean or Elzer, he could never really relax and let his true feelings slip until you burst into his life. Literally. “An unexpected outcome of an experiment,” is what Albedo had told him but regardless, since you entered his life he’s let himself regress into his younger days and let himself take for once.

Maybe that was why you had gotten so used to Diluc’s touched starved self that, when it was suddenly gone, you were feeling uneasy. Lately Diluc seemed to be spending longer hours at his desk or working at the tavern. You knew that he was just busy and there wasn’t any underhanded reasoning behind it, Diluc wasn’t that kind of guy. But did he seriously have to spend every waking moment, day or night, talking to the same people? When was the last time you saw him for more than two minutes? Diluc isn’t a big fan of idle talking but would it seriously hurt just to catch up? You didn’t even get together to have your weekly chess matches too.

You didn’t consider yourself a very clingy person and you knew what a relationship with Diluc was going to be like so why were you getting so bothered? You decided to take the situation in your hands and go visit him at the tavern only to see him so busy at work. It both made you a bit huffy, you wanted to storm in there and drag the man away from his work so he could stop trying to speed run life - not like that would ever happen because the second hand embarrassment would make you dissolve into the ground and you could never show your face to Diluc if you actually did that - but also making you more upset. Here he was, working and running his business, and you couldn’t go at least a couple weeks without seeing him. You ended up turning around and going home to scream into your pillow and sleep the heavy feeling away.

Your inner turmoil seemed to seep out into the open that Kaeya felt the need to bring it up. As much as Diluc dislikes Kaeya around you, he really does care about you and he still does owe you for the troubles he gave you when you first started going out with Diluc. He catches you while you’re off running errands and manages to coax you into getting some lunch with him. You’ve been bottling up your feelings so much that when Kaeya shows some concern you let it all pour out. At this point you don’t care if it’s Kaeya of all people you’re confessing your feelings to, you just want to get it off your chest because the man you’re in love with doesn’t seem to notice you’re actually there and it’s making you feel insecure about yourself. Kaeya gives you a sympathetic smile and tells you not to worry about it, he’ll personally knock some sense into Diluc.

Diluc’s been hard at work on another possible Fatui plan and business with the winery that he can’t help but feel that he was missing something. Was he overlooking something? He had planned this for a while so everything should be perfect. It wasn’t until Kaeya himself had to walk in, press his hand on the tavern counter, and call him an idiot that he realizes that he had been so wrapped up in his work and personal duties that he completely neglected you. He quickly passes his duties to Charles with a quick apology, throws his coat on, gives Kaeya a very strained thank you, and he’s out the door to find you. He’s already lost so much so he’ll be damned if he looses you. Not right now. 

You gave him the key to your home after a few months of being together, in case his he needed to temporarily hide should his night activities get the best of him. He’s already at your door in seconds as he quickly unlocks and steps in. 

“Beloved?” he softly calls out to not accidently scare you but he receives no reply. It’s dark inside but he can see your shoes at the door so he knows you’re inside somewhere. He softly closes and locks the door as he hangs his coat up. Carefully running a hand down the fabric and beside your coat as he looks around your small home. He’s always felt it was warm even when you weren’t here. The “home” he has will always be the place he grew up in but after everything that’s happened, he feels a bit alienated in there so he always appreciated that you lent him a key.

He catches the sound of some shuffling and follows the sound to see you under your blankets. He breathes a quick sigh of relief that you weren’t in any danger as he carefully circles around your bed before gently placing a hand on your back. He’s never been good at words or communicating his feelings so he’s at a bit of a standstill. Despite his reputation of being a nobleman of high esteem, you’re his first serious relationship. As far as he’s concerned you’re going to be his only relationship for that matter.

“I...apologize for my recent behaviour. It was never my intention to hurt you. I ended up letting myself get too blinded to see you were in pain and that was my fault. You don’t have to forgive me now but won’t you let me see your face my love?” he asked in all his awkward pose, put him in front of massive event and he’ll perform with flying colours but put him in front of his partner and he stumbles over his worlds like a new born fawn. But it seems to bring a small laugh from you as you peek from under the covers. 

He smiles softly as he sees your ears flush pink. No matter how many times he calls you that you always get so shy, he adores it. But he can feel the guilt rise up in his chest, you’ve always been there to support and reassure him that he was doing everything right. That things were going to be okay when he re-took his father’s business and you would be with him every step of the way. So in the best and awkward way that Diluc can manage, he tells you this. By the time he’s done he can feel his own face start to pink but it’s made you feel better so it was worth it. 

“Feeling better?” he smiles softly as you nod up at him as he lays down beside you, opening his arms in comfort, “Good, come here.” 

You shuffle closer to him as he holds you. It’s been awhile since he’s held you like this and even without realizing it, he’s missed this. Just you and him together, basking in each other’s presence. No work that needed to be attended to. No Fatui trying to cause him any more trouble. It was a safe place and one he didn’t want to let go.  

“What if we got married?”

There’s a beat of silence. 

Then a thud. 

You end up scrambling and falling off your bed face first. It’s a bit silent as you give off a pain groaned and climb back up and he can see your face has exploded red. He can almost see steam coming off as you try and nurse your nose. He blinks a bit at you taken aback as you stutter and scream into your hands as your brain seems to process what he just asked. You lift your face from your hands to look at him, somehow go even redder, and scream louder into your hands. He’s not sure if this is something he should be offended or concerned about but the weight he had been feeling earlier starts to fade away as a new and familiar feeling bubbles up. For the first time in half a month, Diluc let’s out a laugh as he tries to console you as you manage out a yes.

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Gripping my writing hand why is no one stopping me? Diluc you’re literally acting like Childe rn. [if anyone is confused ahem Childe: Fiancé HCs (should be in my masterlist)]

Also, I continue to look away from the lore. Kaeya and Diluc are not on the best of terms but if they can have petty rich lady wine talk then Kaeya can walk in and call Diluc an idiot.

I was serious when I said that I researched hawk behaviours. I have learned the internet is horrible in telling me how hawks behave. But I did find this and I found this hilarious:

In the case of the red-tailed hawk, for example, the pair soar, screaming at each other; then the male dives at the female, who may roll in the air to present her claws to him in mock combat.

[maxwell-grant]

Might I please ask if you have an opinion of DRACULA? (Either the novel itself or the adaptations); having read both this novel and FRANKENSTEIN, I'm tempted to agree with the reviewer who wrote that one of these is a Classic and the other is actually Fun to read ... (-;

(Art by Cinemamind)

I completely understand the sentiment of "one's a classic and the other's fun to read" and I don't necessarily disagree with it. I don't read Frankenstein for fun, I read it because it's the book closest to me and it's heartbreaking to think about and it's got one of my favorite characters ever in it and it's got a stake in my soul I gotta renew every year. Dracula, however? Dracula is a blast and it boggles the mind as to how every adaptation can be so crushingly lesser in nearly every aspect. My hardcover edition with annotations is one of my most prized possessions.

It's interesting that people tend to talk about Frankenstein and Dracula like Frankenstein was cutting edge sci-fi while Dracula was archaic and folkloric, when it's really the other way around. Frankenstein is the story of an arrogant dipshit rejecting modern science and thinking to unearth outdated knowledge soon blossoming into a vicious cycle of savagery, where as Dracula is the story of an ancient predator adapting and trying to take over current society and fought by a ragtag team of upstanding citizens using modern tactics to stave him off and eventually fight him, desperately struggling to stay ahead of the curve as he wisens to their tactics.

This book was really ahead of it's time in so many ways. I could easily see excerpts of it, particularly the Demeter journals and Renfield's story, taking off as internet creepypastas or found footage horror films. Dracula's a story about a group of characters playing detective as they update their blog entries about the coming of an initially incomprehensible horror taking over their lives. It's a story that could work regardless of Victorian or vampire trappings, and we know this because Blair Witch Project and Marble Hornets are some of the biggest horror successes of the past decades, all of which follow the same general idea, except in Dracula, they don't just discover the true nature of the horror, they also start fighting back and ultimately destroy it.

Dracula's obviously a great villain, that goes without saying. I don't actually tend to take Dracula seriously much of the time because I'm very fond of comedy takes on Dracula and vampires, but that doesn't at all diminish his impact in the original book. He's barely in the novel for much of it which makes his every appearence Count, and the atmosphere as well as the many, many forms he can show up or be suggested at really help solidify what an incredible presence he can be.

He's the strange ruler in a foreign country, he's the kooky old man with weird customs, he's the creepy house owner tormenting a hapless guest, he's a barbarian who lives in nostalgia. He's the wind on your window, a dog on the street, a bat in your windshield, a storm on your ship. He's a predator in every way possible, he's a handsome aristocrat, he's a tragic victim of his own monstrous nature, he's a demon who threatens to consume all mankind, he's the fucker who assaulted your loved one and has to go down hard by machete right now.

Even if we just threw out the 124 years of Dracula's history out, we'd still have enough material in the book not just for a great villain, but dozens of great villains and characters who could take just about any of these traits and run with them. And still, the thing that really, really stuck out to me about Dracula wasn't him, it was the other characters

Art by Kiwi

Dracula's cast is so, so underrated, so unfortunately sidelined as a result of adaptations that only care about The Count and try to give him all the dramatic weight and characterization and sideline all the other characters as merely bit players. Stories that twist Jonathan into a useless fop or an active jerk on the idea that he's the "boring" one, that diminish Renfield's story into just being a hapless and insane goon of Dracula, that make Van Helsing the only character who's even capable of putting up a fight and make him a generic badass, that completely neglect Quincy Morris even though he's great and everyone who discovers him is aghast at discovering "holy shit there's a COWBOY in Dracula?" like yes, there is, and he's incredible and everyone should love him and everyone WOULD love him if only the adaptations remembered he exists.

Adaptations that completely sideline Mina when, and I can't stress this enough, she is the most competent character in the book, one of the greatest pop culture detectives, a wonderful and compassionate and incredibly strong and intelligent character and the main reason why they even managed to win against the Count in the first place, and arguably the closest thing the book even has to a protagonist or hero. I'm not gonna go too into it here but, even putting aside the sheer awfulness of adaptations that try and force a romance between The Count and Mina, seriously fuck off with that, why is it that pretty much every "official" adaptation has had considerably less feminist interpretations of Mina than the source material written in the 1880s? It's a complete travesty (and yes, I'm including LOEG Mina in this, anyone who likes the book and character could have done that concept better)

I enjoy aspects of Dracula adaptations, mostly regarding certain actors's takes on the characters like Bela Lugosi (the only saving grace of that movie, honestly, but rightfully considered the iconic performance), or Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. I very much enjoy the Dracula adaptation Orson Welles did because it at least tried to stay faithful to the book. But regardless of their individual quality, I don't have much to say about Dracula adaptations that try to adapt the book other than "WHY in christ aren't you just sticking to what's in the book? Do you not see how GREAT it is, all the great things about it that are just waiting to be rediscovered and loved by new audiences? STOP WHATEVER IT IS YOU'RE DOING WITH MINA FOR THE LOVE OF GOD-"

So yeah I definitely got thoughts on Dracula. Utterly adore the book but thinking about how much of it's greatness has been lost in the adaptations kinda makes me a little angry. Of course, this doesn't extend to adaptations that tell different stories or just put Dracula into existing stories or reinterpret it. I love Nosferatu and Castlevania Dracula and Hellsing Dracula and Billy & Mandy Dracula and Sesame Street Dracula. Dracula's basically become a sub-category of monster in it's own right and there's no such think as too many monsters, or too many Draculas

I'm very glad that Dracula's public domain because it means not only can he just show up anywhere, but it also means that just about anyone can pen their own Dracula stories. Still, it would be nice if the other great characters of Dracula got brought along for the ride on a couple of those.

[what-if-nct]

i have a confession again-

the first few times we chatted, wasn’t me… it was my friend…

*le gasp*

alright, so the time that i was talking about the phone case and also the story wasn’t actually me. in fact, the reason why my friend pretended that i was speaking was because he felt like his presence was cursed.

meaning if he spoken to you in his actual account, he felt like you may hate him and then ignore him like what a lot of people do online.

he hasn’t been feeling good ever since that discord chat with the person telling him that he was a bad shawol and now his confidence level went low as well as his mental health as the situation just gets worse. he’s recovering now by the way and would like to chat to people like a kpop buddy.

he’s really sweet and he often thinks about others first instead of himself. he loves to dance to kpop songs in his room and write his stories on his phone. he’s really creative and is very passionate about nude art. so much that drawing nude art of jonghyun gives him joy and peace. he’s also practicing realism so he could confidently share it with people, mainly those he knew. which was the reason why he made a jonghyun drawing account where he could show me and his friends some art he has been trying to do and since he felt like tumblr was more like a nice space for artists, he would try to add some hashtags so he could find more likeminded people, but it only ever showed up some judgemental people.

also, he does make a little NSFW art as well which was mainly something he does for fun because he always wanted to make it ever since he learned about rule 34 and all that, but he didn’t know how to label his account as nsfw and even if he could, his friends may not be able to access the blog.

you may or may not know the blog’s name but due to the fact that he wants to keep himself private and doesn’t want anyone to blast him out on the internet, i think i would rather dm you the name. but yeah… he has been harassed for making art when really it was a coping mechanism for him. he likes nude art wether it’s rule 34 or not he has always had a passion for making something like that. now, his blog is now privated due to the amount of harassment he has received but he does show me some of his art in dms from time to time but since you cannot make a group chat since that has been taken off years prior (i believe), that’s why he made a blog, and plus we (including him) were new to tumblr which is why we didn’t know which hashtag to use so we would used literally everything that describes the picture such as #kpop #jonghyun #shinee and etc. people had rudely told us to not over tag our posts and due to the nature of their asks, we literally backfired back at them with some of my friends telling them that he’s new to tumblr and doesn’t understand how it works yet.

but he’s fine now and he even changed his url due to privacy in his name. he doesn’t want to be involved in anything and rather stick to his own fans on wattpad since that is his safe place.

if you’d like i could send you his url so you can chat with him and if he asks who are you, just say that i sent you because you’re a mutual. it may take him a while to open up (especially on social media) but trust me he’s so sweet and i promise that you’ll be such a nice friend to him!

frick- don’t know if i mentioned it but he was the one who was talking about the bling bling phone case which was few weeks ago so i don’t expect you to remember but yea… that was actually his art and not mine. although he did asked if i wanted one as well. (that’s how cute he is heheh-)

It really suck his experience in the fandom has scared him away from interacting with fandom. It wasn't fair for other fans to attack for miss tagging. Especially since you were new. I had a blog with a friend and she would over tag and we got kind of mean messages. And it sucks like she was just tagging as appropriately as she could, I honestly undertag cause I hate tagging I'm to the point if I can just put Haechan or Hendery thats all I'm going to do. I don't even like adding incorrect nct texts\quotes. And there is beautiful in nsfw are and if it makes him happy it genuinely isn't hurting anyone and he shouldn't be made to feel bad for it. And I would never ever ever ignore someone or turn anyone away unless someone is mean. Even then I'd still try to communicate. So he shouldn't feel afraid to talk to me. And he sounds like a wonderful person and if he'd like you can give me his url and tell him to come by anytime he wants oh by the way @hyunjins-fat-gf is my main blog so if that blog follows you, it's me. She is me I am her

[writer-k-pop]

Picnic

식이오법에 최소한 약간의 야채가 필요해. You need at least some veggies in your diet. 

Description: Just going on a picnic with Mingyu because Mingyu deserves the fluff and love.  Warnings: None Genre: Fluff, BF!Mingyu x Fem!Reader Word Count: 1.9k

Seventeen Masterlist | Masterlists

"MINGYU!" You yell and his head pops into the doorway, eyes bright with excitement.

"Yes?" He coos at you with a silly smile.

"Did you grab the portable charger?" You ask, a hand still resting on the open drawer where the charger should've been.

Mingyu quickly nods his head, "Yeah, it was the first thing I packed."

You pout, "Could've told me." Closing the draw, you pick up your purse from the bed and walk towards the human embodiment of a puppy you get to call your boyfriend.

"I did." He pouts back when you reach him, "But I think you were busy wrestling with the blanket."

You search your brain for the memory of his voice telling you he packed the charger but your brain sits silent. "I definitely didn't hear you."

"Get better at hearing then." Mingyu jokes and wiggles the tip of your ear between his fingers.

You bat his hand away, "Maybe you need to get a louder voice." You joke back.

As you take a step towards the door, Mingyu sucks in a large breath, preparing to do just that. Quickly, you realize what he's doing and leap to cover his mouth with both your hands.

"No need for it right now, though." You say softly and Mingyu's shoulders shake with a muffled chuckle while his squinting eyes mirror the laughter.

Mingyu lowers your hands and reveals the smile on his lips. "We should probably get going so we can find a good spot." He reasons and walks past you to grab the picnic basket filled with your dinner, drinks, and some desserts for after.

You silently agree and grab the blanket, all zipped up in its built-in bag. As you walk out of your apartment, Mingyu's excitement grows steadily. You can see it in the way his hand opens and closes around the picnic basket's handle and in the way he takes a few tiny fluttering steps after every few steps. You can feel it in the way his hand holds yours tightly and how he swings your intertwined hands between the two of you.

"Do you think there'll be a lot of people?" You ask, watching as most of the people around you head in the opposite direction with similar accessories as you and Mingyu.

Mingyu shakes his head, his eyes following two children as they laugh happily, "It hardly ever is and I don't think the holiday is going to change that."

You nod, "Okay, if you say so."

"I know so." He sasses with a smirk.

Rolling your eyes, you let out an airy laugh, "Whatever."

"See, what did I tell you?" Mingyu lifts both of his hands, gesturing at the empty park in front of you.

You smile and nod in agreement, "You were right."

He skips ahead a couple steps, "Let's set up over here. We'll be able to see everything from here." Mingyu stops just before the hill breaks away and sets down the picnic basket.

Making your way over, you take in the view. The city is spread around the park and the river splits the city right down the middle. Along the river banks, people mill around while they spend the evening with their friends or family, enjoying a meal and waiting for the fireworks. From up here, you'd be able to see the whole show and your ears wouldn't be terrorized with the explosions.

"Ack!" Mingyu yelps in surprise. You break from your thoughts and look over at him. Somehow, he slipped the blanket out of your grasp and was attempting to lay it out but the slight breeze had other plans. The unfurled blanket is now sliding down his front side and an unimpressed expression paints his face.

You press your lips together to suppress a laugh but a smile still shows.

"Help please." He pouts holding out the crumpled blanket.

"Okay." You nod and pick up the two corners he's not holding. Within seconds, the two of you have got the blanket flat against the ground. Clambering onto the blanket, you use your shoes to hold down two of the corners while Mingyu copies your actions.

"I wonder why no one ever comes here to watch the show." You wonder as Mingyu begins pulling items out of the basket. "It's such a good spot."

Mingyu hands you a container of pasta and answers, "It's pretty far away and I guess most people like to be down there with all the other people." He holds out a fork and you pluck it out of his hands.

"Lucky for us that we don't mind being alone then." You smile happily.

"Very lucky for us." Mingyu repeats before taking a large bite of pasta. "Mmm," He hums happily, "This is so good. I'm such a good cook."

"I helped!" You retort, twirling red stained noodles around your fork.

Mingyu swallows and nods, "Right, and my sous chef did an amazing job of opening the noodle box and placing the noddles in the boiling water."

You roll your eyes but let the comment slide and bring a bite of pasta into your mouth. "Who's recipe is this?" You question, taking in the flavors as you chewed.

"Uh, I found it on the internet on a blog of some sorts. Though I tweaked it a little cause I know you don't like some of the things that were listed." Mingyu explains before taking another bite himself. "OH!" He mumbles with pasta hanging from his mouth. Quickly slurping up the noodles, he reaches back into the basket and pulls out two more containers of food.

One container holds garlic bread and the other a simple salad.

Picking up a piece of garlic bread, you hum happily, "I was starting to think we were forgetting a pivotal side dish."

"I would NEVER forget the garlic bread." Mingyu feigns offense that you would even think that about him, "Also make sure to eat some salad. You need the veggies."

"Mingyu." You state and straighten your back.

"(y/n)." He mimics you while righting back a smile.

"When eating pasta, the only thing needed to complete the meal is good bread to dip into the sauce." You argue, "Salads were never invited to the carb party and I don't know when they decided to show up but I'm not giving into their presence. And you can't make me." You point your fork at Mingyu, teasingly.

Mingyu's mouth twitches into a playful smirk and his eyes sparkle with the laughter he's holding back. "But eating all those carbs isn't really that good for your health. You need at least some veggies in your diet."

"I eat veggies!" You counter, spinning more pasta around your fork.

Mingyu chuckles, "Nibbling on a slice of cucumber every other day is not enough."

You pout while chewing and he can't help but smile adoringly at you. With another glance at you, he lifts a forkful of pasta up to his mouth.

"Garlic bread will always be the right hand man to pasta." You say while stabbing some lettuce pieces grudgingly.

Mingyu nods, letting you win the banter, but you don't notice the corners of his mouth tick up. He, honestly, can't help it. He loves you and whatever playful mood you're in whenever. Whether it's when you're so certain that you could do something better than him or when you're like this and know he's correct but will do everything in your power not to outright admit defeat.

"I made it with your favorite dressing so I'm sure you'll like it." He tells you and follows your actions of stabbing some salad onto his fork.

You chew in silence before sighing happily. The weather is perfect, the view is perfect, and the meal Mingyu prepared fits the mood perfectly.

"I can't wait to see what kinds of fireworks they have prepared for this year." Mingyu comments, looking up at the sky.

You nod in agreement, "Last year's show will be tough to beat."

"Especially the heart eyed emoji. That was the best." He nods and twirls his fork around.

"No, that wasn't the coolest." You shake your head, "The coolest was the one that exploded like three different times. The first was into three stars and then the points of those stars exploded into more stars and then those points exploded into hearts. That was the coolest."

Mingyu chews and glances at the sky in thought before swallowing. "You know," He says with a laugh, "I don't remember that one. Must've not been that impressive."

Your fork drops into your pasta container and your jaw drops as well. "What do you mean you don't remember that one? You weren't even there!" You nearly exclaim, remembering that he had to miss the fireworks last year, but then you see his squinted eyes and the wide smile on his face. "Kim Mingyu. Why do you do this to me?" You sigh and pick up your fork again.

"Because it's fun to see your reactions." Mingyu explains a little too happily.

"One of these days..." You let the threat dissipate and put another bite of pasta in your mouth before taking a bite of bread for completion.

Mingyu rolls his eyes, "Yeah, yeah, one of these days, I'll pay for all this." Then, he leans closer, "I am looking forward to it."

Nearly choking on your food, you push him away while he laughs giddily.

30 minutes later, when all the food has been finished and put away, Mingyu opens his arms and you scoot over to him. Resting your head against his shoulder, you sigh in content. The sun has just disappeared from the sky and the park lamps are slowly illuminating one by one giving the park a warm, artificially yellow glow.

"I'm glad you could come this year." You say, staring out at the city as it lights it while the sky darkens. "Last year was very boring without you."

A chuckle rolls through his chest, "I know, trust me, I was wishing I was with you watching fireworks every single moment. Stupid work." He says, playfully angry but in reality he loved his job. Though it did have its downfalls with having to miss attending some events with you.

"Promise me next year?" You ask, hopeful but knowing that it was a slim chance as a year is a long time to promise something.

"I promise I'll try to keep my schedule clear for next year." Mingyu says and places a kiss on the top of your head. "It would suck to miss another one."

"If you can't come next year, I don't know if I will go." You tell him, "It was weird doing it without you and I don't know if I want to go through that again."

Mingyu pulls back slightly, "Then who's going to show me blurry pictures of the fireworks and who's going to tell me about the coolest fireworks?" He asks, a touch of panic in his voice.

You shrug, "Someone else?"

"But you explain them the best." He shakes his shoulders making your head bounce up and down.

"Okay, fine. I'll go but know I won't enjoy it." You smile at the thought that Mingyu likes your explanations of fireworks.

"I love you, (y/n)." Mingyu says softly as the first firework is launched into the sky and explodes into shimmering flames.

"I love you, too, Mingyu." You reply, snuggle closer to him, and let your eyes wander up to the sky where another firework is exploding into specks of green and red.

[mysterytickingegos]

I’ve Created a Monster

Pairing: Darkiplier x Clairvoyant!Reader

Genre: Hurt/Comfort

Word Count: 2,480

Summary: After a bad date, you made a rather interesting friend. But better yet, you discovered something just as interesting about yourself. This something leads to a very exhilarating part of your life, but you learn the hard way that it’s not quite as glamorous an adventure as it may seem. The last person you’d expect is the one to bring you back to reality.

Anonymous Request: If I may request! :) Can I have a darkiplier x fem!reader fic with the prompts 37, 44, 45? After the events of wkm? Just some hurt and comfort to give me dem feelz 😀👍 Maybe Dark is the one saying it please? Much thanks!

Authors Note: Probably not what you were going for with the prompts but I hope you still enjoy it!

Want to read more?

[Image Description: A Gif of Darkiplier from the “horror” branch of “A Date with Markiplier,” speaking to the viewer at a table, while another image of him leans away and yells. End Description]

Junk mail, bill, wrong address, junk mail...

The usual. You weren’t sure what ‘cool thing’ you were expecting to get in the mail in 2020 but the disappointment was there anyway. Just as you shut your mailbox you heard somebody coming down the stairs and cringed, bracing yourself as you hoped it wasn’t who you thought it was. But of course it was.

Your upstairs neighbor, AKA the worst date ever. “Ah, hey Y/n.”

“Hi Mark...” You gave him a sad attempt at a wave, and he gave you a nod, walking over to his own mailbox.

‘How’s it going?”

“Great, yeah...you?”

“Good.”

And with that the room dissolved into awkward silence, and you took your leave back up the stairs. Funny enough these moments used to be filled with dumb jokes and flirting, that was until he finally asked you out. You had been overjoyed, happy that someone had taken an interest in you and glad that something was breaking your dull everyday routine. Little did you know the highlight of the date would be the end. He had taken you to an expensive restaurant only to reveal that he had ‘forgotten’ his wallet (which ended up falling out of his pocket in front of you in the theater.) Then he had been upset with you for accidentally falling asleep to what must’ve the most boring Rom-com you had ever been subjected to. You both seemed to be in silent agreement that this should never, ever happen again.

But unbeknownst to you and Mark, somebody else had been lingering around. That was the first time that specific somebody had decided to visit you, making a sucky date the least of your concerns. You spent the rest of your night watching compilations on YouTube and eating chocolate Ice Cream. You kept going from sad to angry over your horrible day in your head.

Were you only worth asking out for a free meal? A meal that for you took about half your grocery budget. You should’ve given that ass a piece of your mind.

You sniffed, wiping your eyes and scarfing down even more ice cream. “Damn it.”

“Aw, don’t cry, darling. It wasn’t that bad.”

You screamed and nearly jumped out of your skin, scrambling away from the man now next to you on the couch. The moment your feet hit the ground you grabbed your phone and locked yourself in your bedroom. “Who the fuck are you?!”

“Let’s say I'm a... friend of a friend. I thought I’d check up on you after that train wreck.” He spoke through the door. You heard a laugh layer over his voice, and wondered if somebody else was there.

“I’m calling the police!” You shouted back.

Then you heard the same voice just in front of you, clearly amused with the situation. “You’re welcome to do so, though I’m not sure they’d believe you.” It was the same man from the couch, smiling at you. You noticed how he seemed to be glitching, and how as his head tilted to the side his figure had duplicated in blue for a split second. “As I’m sure you can tell by now, I’m not exactly human.”

“What do you want from me?”

“I’d like to get to know you, Y/n. Is that so much to ask?”

The first few nights that you had stayed up a little too late and wound up speaking that deranged spirit again, you had been terrified. But soon enough you learned to enjoy his company. Sure, he could be a little unsettling at times, particularly when he was irritated and got...cold. Not just figuratively, which he was, but literally. The temperature in your apartment would drop a significant amount and you would change subjects shivering. But all in all, from what you could see behind that wall he had up, he was simply lost at worst, not exactly evil. And it was nice to not have to be so lonely all the time.

But during one of these visits, early on, you had decided to ask why.

“Why me, of all people?”

The man you had come to know simply as ‘Dark’  leaned in, lighting up as though he had been waiting on you to ask that this entire time. “Oh, Y/n. Don’t you know?”

“Why would I ask if I already knew?”

He let out an impatient sigh. ‘That’s...I was being...” He glanced up at you just in time to catch the smile playing at your lips after successfully ruining his aesthetic. “You know what? You can stay in the dark.”

“No no no, I’ll shut up, just tell me.” You turned to face him on the couch, tucking your legs under yourself.

He left you in suspense for a few moments, before dropping his voice down low when he spoke so you would have to lean closer in just to hear him. “Let’s just say you are...spiritually attuned to my world.”

“Spiritually attuned?”

“Yes, you are psychic, a medium, clairvoyant. Whatever you want to call it.” He explained. “You are a magnet to things outside the realm of the natural. A strange pair, aren’t we?”

And that was all it took, so many unexplained events from your past were now explained, and a world of possibilities was opened to you. You must’ve spent weeks researching how to harness your abilities, starting the second he left. Sure, most sites and blogs were absolutely full of it but you got the gist. With that and some common sense, how much could go wrong?

You started to take silly jobs on the internet, from old women who thought something was off with their mirrors to amateur ghost hunters who wanted a ‘consultant.’ It took you a while to gain some confidence that you weren’t just pulling this stuff out of thin air, that you hadn’t lost your mind. But after a few months, once you hit that learning curve, man it was fun.

Your latest job was a little more hardcore, a young family wanting help to push a poltergeist out of their new home. Their stories had chilled you to the bone, but you were happy to help. Your evaluation at the house went fine, nothing too far past what you were used to. Except, the entire time you were there you felt as though you had weight sitting on your chest. You could barely listen to the poor couple tell you what they experienced due to a faint scratching feeling at the back of your mind. You weren’t an expert yet but you could tell that whatever this thing was, it did not welcome you there. Worse yet, the feeling of being drained that the couple mentioned was certainly affecting you as well. Perhaps worse.

But all that accomplished was making you even more determined to rid the house of it. You took notes for your research later, tried to communicate in the most active part of the house (with no results,) and gave the couple the best advice you could at the moment.

“Until this thing is gone, it’s best you stay somewhere else.”

A few nights later, you had just finished packing your bag and begun heading for the door when you heard Dark just behind you. “Good evening, Y/n.” His voice was layered, followed by a subtle echo bouncing off the walls of your small apartment. When you turned to face him you saw he was already frowning, having realized you were on your way out. “Where are you off to so late?“

“I’m going to hang out with some friends. So I’m sorry, you’ll have to find some other way to entertain yourself tonight, instead of ya know, slowly but surely turning me into a nocturnal hermit.“ You joked, adjusting the tote bag on your shoulder.

He chuckled, bringing his hands behind his back. “I hate to break this to you my dear, but you were there well before we met.”

“Ha ha.” You turned to leave but were stopped short when you saw that he had apparated directly in front of you.

“What’s in the bag?” He asked, starting to reach for it curiously before you stepped back.

“Nothing.” You said, a little too quickly. “Just some party supplies, alright?”

He raised his brow, no longer amused. “...Convincing. Is it really so difficult to be honest with me?”

“Oh don’t even try and pull that card, you won’t even tell me why you’re haunting that jerk upstairs.”

His jaw clenched, and he looked away from you. “That’s different. Bringing such things to light would only do more harm than good.”

“Well, I may be wrong but...my thing is kinda the same. And I like what we’ve got going on so just let it go. Please?”

Dark stayed quiet, peeved off and clearly even more curious than he was before. Finally, he side-stepped out of your way, “Just be careful.”

When you got to the house, you were careful. Keeping lights on and keeping quiet while you did everything your research said you were supposed to. As you did, the spirit was also quiet, too quiet. And on your way home, you kept waiting for that heavy feeling on your chest to fade away.

Your apartment was freezing when you stepped out of the bathroom after your shower. Cold air brushed over your shoulders as you wrapped your arms around yourself. “Dark?” You called out, looking around for him. This wasn’t like him. He usually made you aware of his presence as soon as he showed up. You walked into your bedroom and when you locked eyes with another in the mirror, you froze.

This wasn’t like Dark, because it wasn’t him.

Instead, the person standing behind you was a very decrepit and very angry old woman, seemingly fading in and out of reality as she glared at you. “Y̸o̵u̶ ̴s̴h̷o̵u̶l̶d̸ ̸h̵a̵v̷e̷ ̵l̸e̴f̷t̶ ̷w̶e̶l̵l̶ ̸e̴n̵o̷u̶g̷h̶ ̶a̸l̶o̴n̸e̷.̴“

The mirror shattered and you whipped around to face her, but she wasn’t there. The air whirling around the place started to pick up, and picture frames flew off the wall at you, then other objects that had decorated your room. You tried to flee but your front door wouldn’t budge. You started to bang on it, crying in fear and praying that anyone would hear you. Next thing you knew though, you were flung towards the wall.

Finally, everything settled. The weight was off your chest, but there was plenty of pain there in it’s place. You slowly pulled yourself into a sitting position, then wiped the tears off your face with one hand and held the other over your ribs. You weren’t sure how long you sat there, waiting for something to happen and your heartbeat overpowered the ringing silence in your ears. You wanted to get your phone, to call for help but you were terrified of gaining attention again. You didn’t even really stop shaking until you heard a familiar voice.

“...Y/n?” Dark didn’t see you when he first showed up, just the disaster area that was your living room. Once had seen you, he was beside you in a blink of an eye. You didn’t even think about it before you wrapped your arms around him. He only gave you a moment of comfort before he pulled back, looking over you in concern. “What happened? Who hurt you?”

You couldn’t really get much out between pained wincing as he scooped you into his arms. “It was a -Ow- s-spirit.”

He laid you down on the couch as gently as he could, and you could see his face change from confusion to recognition to irritation. “Why, pray tell, would a spirit be here?”

“I may have taken a job to get rid of it...” You muttered under your breath.

“Unbelievable.” He shook his head, about to say something else before he stopped himself. Instead he moved his focus to your hand, moving it to reveal the dark bruise over your ribs.

“See, I knew you weren’t gonna like it.”

“You going off and messing with things you haven’t even begun to understand? Of course I don’t like it.” His figure glitched and layered itself in different colors before he got up and went to the kitchen.

You scoffed at his remark, trying to sit up. “Hey I understand more than you think, I’ve been doing this crap for months!”

He came back around the corner with an ice pack from your freezer in his hand. “Months?” He apparated in front of you, gently placing the pack down on the bruise, allowing you to squeeze his free hand until the shock wave from the pressure passed over you.

“I started looking into all this after you told me the truth.” You confessed. “I mean with the internet it wasn’t difficult, and I do my due diligence alright? I don’t know what went wrong.”

The aura behind him flashed pure red for just a moment, he approached his next words much softer than usual. “You can’t navigate things like this using the internet, Y/n.”

“Well I didn’t think you’d want to help me help everyone else get rid of their ghosts.”

He scoffed at you, beginning to raise his voice as the aura swapped back to blue. “You were right! I don’t understand why you would want anything to do with this, anyway. Why would you do this to yourself??” 

“I thought...I thought it’d be fun-”

“This isn’t a game!”

“You know I really don’t get you, why-”

“Of course you don’t! Do you even know what I am?”

“Well, no...”

“Neither do I.” He growled. His words truly sunk in once you saw the pain behind his eyes. He collected himself, taking a deep breath before continuing, “What I do know, is that I was human once. And people screwing with things that they shouldn’t have for selfish reasons is what turned me into this. Over the years I’ve had to see other terrible things happen to well meaning people. I’ll be damned if you throw yourself into the fire for fun.”

You nodded softly, breaking the intense gaze between you to look as your hands. “...Okay.” You opened your mouth to speak again after that, but decided against it.

“What is it?” Dark asked, trying and failing to hide the impatience in his voice.

“I just didn’t think...well I really didn’t think you’d care. Well, about this part I guess-”  You sighed, cutting yourself off this time, rather than rambling.

He was quiet for a moment, placing his hand under your chin and tilting your head up to look at him. “I care...more than you know.” It was the silence after that, that spoke volumes, and even more so the way he moved forward to press his lips to yours. “Now, if you’ll excuse me I have a poltergeist to take care of.”